There are lots of veteran Rockets fans here, and I learn that almost all of them hate two teams: Mavs and Jazz. Besides being multi year Rockets rivals, one of the reasons the two teams being hated is that both play dirty and with lots of cheating (aka flops). My question is, which team you hate more, and which team has been playing more dirty? I think this is related with Rox history, and this is the right forum to get answers from!
Outside of Terry, I don't see any dirty players from either teams. The Jazz plays a very physical style, but I won't call that dirty, especially in the playoff. Dallas, on the other hand, is a soft team. They don't have any player who is willing to be dirty, other than Terry. Both teams do have a lot flop artists, just like the Suns
T-Mac Says: Jazz. Link Tracy McGrady ensured a spirited start to the Jazz's first-round playoff series against his Houston Rockets on Saturday when he said he believes the Jazz are "nasty" on defense - to the point of nearly being dirty. "I do not think we're a cheap-shot team," forward Carlos Boozer countered. "None of our guys is dirty." McGrady made the comments before the teams played Game 1 of their best-of-7 series at the Toyota Center, and quickly became a hot topic at the pre-game shootaround. While the Jazz players denied they play dirty - a familiar charge that harkens to the days of Stockton and Malone - McGrady didn't back down. When told the Jazz's Matt Harpring had disputed his account of being a player who takes "cheap shots at times," McGrady said: "I must not be on the same court as him. That's his rep." Yet McGrady insisted he meant his comments as a compliment. "I respect the way he plays," McGrady said.
I don't mind 2 things: 1. Hard fouls 2. Aggressive play I DO mind: 1. Cheap shots 2. Flops 3. Excessive whining to the Refs 4. Hard fouls where you intend to hurt someone (for example, Nick Collison's throwdown of Yao whereas he could have held him up and it would have been a good foul.) Jazz are worse, Mavs are still bad enough.
Maybe I am biased but do any of the rockets flop or exaggerate contact the way other teams do? I hate watching AI play nowadays. he throws himself in all sorts of directions attempting to get calls and it makes me sick. I don't know what i would do if I saw AI collide with Dirk. I think the world would come to an end.
Watching Devin Harris today...man, I saw him perform one incredible flop during the 3rd quarter ... I was like WHOA and I had to replay the thing like 4 times over to believe it. It was off an offensive rebound -- he gets the ball, dribbles to the corner, and Harrington was chasing him. All of a sudden ... in about the span of 0.2 seconds, he flails his arm and there was an instantaneous whistle. Foul on Harrington. The look on Al's face was just priceless.
yea that was classic. His arms must have been made out of somekind of special rubber for him to be able to flail them around that much. Looked like he was trying do a nutcracker move or something.
First off, let me say that I think purposeful flopping is a what makes NBA basketball so hard to watch. At the same time, if I were competing at that level, I have no problem doing what it takes to win. If a "well-trained" ref falls for a flop, kudos to the player. That's all there is to it. The problem doesn't lie in the teams that flop, or the players that flop alot, it's the refs who just can't seem to tell the difference between a flop and a foul and the preferential treatment of superstars. I don't consider flopping dirty.
Even better when Harris went up for a layup (and got blocked?) by Stephen Jackson I think and held on to jackson as he made a long hard fall to the ground. Cuban and the rest of dallas were surprised it wasn't a foul but even the refs weren't stupid enough to fall for that kind of flopping. What makes it even more stupid is Harris hurt his shoulder doing that, and could have made it a lot more serious for him or Jackson. I just hope Cuban dosen't go out and put a bunch of pressure on the refs to sway calls more into their favor as he has done before.
